Queer Filmmakers Pitch Dream Projects at UTA Panel — SkimNews
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- Hayley Kiyoko said her dream project is a queer take on "Pirates of the Caribbean" — "Keira Knightley, but gay" — during a "Saving Queer Media" panel at UTA in Beverly Hills Thursday night, moderated by Variety's Marc Malkin and hosted by UTA Proud as a fundraiser for the LGBTQ+ film festival Outfest.
- Kiyoko made her directorial debut earlier this year with "Girls Like Girls," based on her bestselling novel and song; she originally tried to get the film greenlit based solely on the song, but financing only came after she wrote the novel.
- Kiyoko also hopes to adapt her second novel, "Where There's Room for Us," into a period-piece film, telling the audience, "It's a period piece, which no one wants to pay for, but they will one day."
- Adam Shankman revealed his dream project is a big-screen adaptation of the Tony-winning coming-of-age rock musical "Spring Awakening," though he said he doubts it could ever get greenlit because of its intense subject matter.
- Wash Westmoreland pitched an adaptation of Chris Bryant's 2020 book "The Glamour Boys," about queer British MPs in the 1930s who were criminalized at home but traveled to pre-Nazi Berlin and later pushed Britain to confront Hitler.
- Angela Robinson said she has been trying to adapt her 2004 action comedy "D.E.B.S." — about schoolgirls recruited to a secret government defense agency — into a television series, noting "sometimes the stars start to align and then they don't."
Why it matters: The panel puts a spotlight on how financing hurdles shape queer storytelling: Kiyoko's debut only got greenlit after her novel became a bestseller, and Shankman flatly doubts "Spring Awakening" could ever be made — illustrating that even established queer filmmakers face structural barriers, which is exactly why UTA and Outfest partnered to fundraise at the event.
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